About us: our vision
The Centre for Inequalities focuses on exploring, understanding and reducing inequalities in education, health, communities and workplaces, and other domains. Our members provide interdisciplinary research and practical interventions, which promote equality, integration and social justice across the lifespan. We cover a variety of issues, including disability rights in the workplace, educational achievement in students from a minority ethnic background, inter-group relations, conflict and prejudice, and the challenges faced by refugees and other displaced communities.
We aim to:
- Provide high quality impactful research for understanding and tackling inequality, and develop and evaluate interventions, ensuring they are evidence-based.
- Train individuals and organisations to embrace and implement EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) principles across the domains of health, education, community and workplaces.
- Work with third and public sectors to create fluent pathways of communication between policy-makers, practitioners, educators and researchers, to allow a more global perspective on EDI issues.
- Support the development of researchers, professional practitioners and wider organisations working on inequality issues at every stage of their career.
- Ensure the findings from our research and knowledge exchange activities are published and accessible to all.
Our impact on the world
The world today faces major challenges, including religious, ethnic and class conflict, gender and ethnic inequality, immigration and large-scale refugee crises. By exploring these issues from multiple perspectives, researching individual motivations, as well as underlying social, political and economic structures, the Centre for Inequalities seeks to develop new, impactful and sustainable interventions that can make a positive difference.
Our research and practice contributes to many of the .
Examples include:
- Our work on intimate partner violence and the issue of sexual consent among different social groups, which supports Gender Equality (SDG5).
- Our explorations of prejudice and inequality faced by disabled people, refugees, and other marginalised groups in schools across Europe, and the subsequent development and implementation of theory-driven interventions, which supports Reduced Inequality (SDG10).
- Our research on the lived experience of people from warzones and post-conflict societies, such as Cyprus and Kosovo, informing initiatives to strengthen institutions and promote peace, which supports Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG16).
Who we are
An interdisciplinary approach
The Centre for Inequalities draws on the expertise of researchers from multiple disciplines and professions, including psychologists, educationalists, social workers, and health practitioners (e.g., nurses, health visitors, pharmacists, public health experts), business experts, sociologists and historians. We believe that this interdisciplinary, methodologically robust, and participatory approach is vital for tackling an issue as complex and multidimensional as inequality. An intellectual humility, and an openness to other perspectives and voices are required. Regardless of background, however, all members share a commitment to addressing inequality around the world.
Partners
Our members work closely with a range of local, national and international organisations to address inequalities in effective and sustainable ways. These organisations include primary and secondary schools in the UK and abroad, NHS Trusts, the Metropolitan Police Service, small and larger charities, and community groups. Our external academic partners in the UK include the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow, Kent, Oxford, and Dublin. Overseas, we partner with ISCTE Lisbon in Portugal, UNIMORE in Italy, Jagiellonian University in Poland, Sabancı University in Turkey, University of Massachusetts in the USA, Jamia Millia Islamia in India, Federal University of São João del-Rei in Brazil, Mongolian National University of Education in Mongolia, University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and several universities in Australia, among many others.
Funding
The work of the Centre for Inequalities is supported by funders including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the British Academy and EU Horizon, as well as through smaller consultancies.
Our research
A multi-methods approach to research
Inequalities arise as a result of complex and dynamic systems that operate, between and within, social and political structures. The main focus of our work is therefore to gain an understanding of those systems, using our findings to develop and evaluate evidence-based interventions for combating prejudice, conflict and inequalities. To do this, our members apply a wide variety of primary and secondary research, with quantitative and statistical skills a particular strength of the Centre. For instance, we often combine meta-analyses of large datasets, cross-sectional and experimental approaches, and will also deploy innovative methods including VR simulations.
Among the topics studied at the Centre for Inequalities are inter-ethnic and inter-faith relations; nationalism and sociopolitical ideologies; prejudice and prejudice-reduction; refugee, Roma, homeless and other displaced and disadvantaged communities; LGBTQ+ and gender rights; older people; victimised and stigmatised groups; mental health and disability. This diverse range of work broadly falls into the following domains:
- Education
- Health
- Workplace
- Prejudice and prejudice-reduction
- Political contexts of inequality
- EDI practice
Education
Our recent work on education includes projects on inequalities faced by undergraduate, postgraduate students and academic staff of different ethnic backgrounds in British higher education institutions.
Health
We have several projects on understanding and tackling health inequalities. For example, one of the larger research projects in the health domain examines inequalities in pain treatment depending on the patient’s gender or ethnic background.
Workplace
Research in this domain includes exploration of inequalities faced by people with a disability in workplaces: how they are integrated and perceived, and what support there is for disability rights among co-workers.
Prejudice and prejudice-reduction
We run a large number of research projects on understanding prejudice in all its forms (e.g., overt and covert), as well as designing, implementing and evaluating theory-informed prejudice-reduction interventions.
Political contexts of inequality
Our research focuses on understanding the impact of the current and historic political climate and rhetoric on inequality globally. For example, our research examines populism and anti-immigration sentiment, and focuses on the impact of colonialism on individual and systemic processes.
EDI practice
This cross-cutting domain provides state-of-the-art training, expertise and advice for people from external organisations who want to understand EDI practice.
Publications/Output
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Teaching and training
The Centre for Inequalities runs the Open Scholarship Hub, training all researchers and practitioners on open science and open scholarship. The Centre also hosts the Social Psychology Laboratory, which provides a platform to social, political, and cultural psychologists, as well as those with an interest in social psychology, for exchanging ideas, collaborating and designing research. In addition, we provide consultancy for external organisations.
News and events
The Centre for Inequalities organises a lively programme of events relevant to expertise of our members, such as book launches, film screenings and research seminars. We also lead the annual ILD EDI Research Conference. Our members are also involved in community-focused activities, and knowledge exchange events with public and third sector organisations.
